What is Science, Technology, and Innovation ("STI") Policy?
Although it is common to use the term STI policy as one type of policy, one could think of it as three different “ideal” types of policies; science policy, technology policy, and innovation policy—each with distinct characteristics (Lundvall & Borrás, 2005).
Science Policy
Science policy is about the promotion of the production of scientific knowledge and, as such, deals with the allocation of resources between different scientific activities. Science policy might serve different objectives from pure curiosity about understanding the world to specific military objectives such as the atomic bomb (Jaffe et al., 2015). Science policy is sometimes based upon a linear model where it is assumed that research efforts will translate more or less automatically into economic and societal outcomes.
Technology Policy
Technology policy, in contrast, focuses on promoting the development and use of specific technologies seen as being of strategic importance for the country. Technology policy is thus based upon the assumption that there are specific strategic technologies that have a major impact upon the economy and on societal objectives, and it focuses on the development and improvement of those technologies or their wider adoption. These technologies can be specific to a particular economic activity or more generic, like information and communication technologies also referred to as “general purpose technologies.”
In a sense, innovation policy incorporates science and technology policy as it aims at intervening in the innovation process as a whole; from science (exploration) to the application to specific technologies, its introduction to the market, and its wide diffusion (exploitation). Innovation policy gives attention not only to the scientific and technological content of innovations but also to the institutional framework and the wider changes that are necessary for innovations to be introduced into the market and used. It also pays attention to other forms of learning beyond science and technology that might also lead to innovations like learning by doing, using, or interacting.
Policy can then be understood as the deliberate action from governments in the economy with the aim of attaining objectives through stimulating changes in the behavior of individuals and organizations. When it comes to STI policies, the aim is to affect the rate and direction of processes within STI. When designing and applying policies, governments need to have a theory of how innovation works in general and empirical evidence of how it works in a particular country, region, or sector. Evolutionary and neoclassical economics represent two alternative theoretical framings with different implications for what type of policies governments should pursue.
Figure 1. The main differences between science policy, technology policy, and innovation policy. | Source: Author’s elaboration based on Lundvall and Borrás (2005).